Our pace seemed inhumanly slow once on
this southbound road, so much so that I wondered just how far it was
to the Abbey; and only when it seemed an age had past, one of those
times that seemingly was far too long to be measured in years, did
the place truly heave itself into sight. The horses were about due
for dosing with grain and water, and while the two men worked on
feeding the two animals who had been pulling and then putting into
harness that pair that had been following on leads, I went over each
hoof of the five horses with my hoof-pick, twenty hooves in all, then
made sure each of them got his fill of water. Once back under way,
however, I realized the truth of the matter.

We had not spent that long at
Laidaan.

Where Paul and Willem lived was easily
twenty miles or more from Roos, perhaps as much as twenty-five miles
by road. Twenty miles was the straight-line distance, realistically.

Paul's buggy, being as laden as it was
with people and supplies, had trouble managing more than a decent
walking pace – it was heavy as a three-inch gun, nearly –
and all four of Willem's horses would be 'flat' by the time we'd come
to where Sarah and I lived.

They would more or less be done with
their efforts for the day. We, on the other hand, would have hours
more of work to do, most of it involving packing and perhaps other
matters, as we would be having three over and Anna – and possibly
Esther – would need to do some substantial cooking. The
buzzard alone was twice too much for Anna's small oven and her pair
of smaller roasting pans.

“Could the seven of us eat an
entire buzzard?” I wondered. The cut-up bird was roosting in that
one large tinned-copper pot, with the pieces of a fool-hen atop it
amid a strong salt solution, one that Esther had obviously 'dosed'
with more salt surreptitiously. Willem's 'dose' of salt was
better at keeping such a bird for an hour or two, while Esther knew
matters would take a good part of a day. “Somehow, I really doubt
it.”

However, talking with Esther implied
what parts of that bird that we did not think likely to eat,
we could easily deliver up to the Public House in town – and there
most likely trade for other suitable foods at a very
favorable rate. She suggested the two of us should stick to
herring regarding Public House food, as those caused minimal
trouble for sick people; and if we were to run a late night, then we
might well wish to retain more of the buzzard's meat for use in a
species of soup – one that she knew of.

“Are you sore enough to try Komaet?”
asked Sarah.

“I am not sure right now,” said
Esther. “I think Paul might be inclined to try it, as he
was speaking of being sore still.”

Another mile; then a second; then a
third. The time in my head seemed to be dragging, the sun hanging
stationary, it roosting like a grain-glutted quoll over to my left,
the huge-white-ball-with-just-a-hint-of-blue hanging in the sky like
a strangled corpse dangling from a rope. I wondered if Hans and Anna
were home yet, then as we slowly passed a familiar landmark, that
being an unusually wide cornfield next to a woodlot on the west side
of the road, a woodlot that went easily half a mile south of our
current position and a further distance yet to the west, I knew just
where they were.

“We'll get home perhaps half an hour
after they do,” I thought.

“No, not quite,” said the soft
voice. “They'll get home after you do, perhaps within the time
needed to get your things unloaded and the buggy more or less ready
to have its wheels pulled out in the yard.”

“Oh, Sarah's horses...” I thought.
“Where are they?”

“They're out in Willem's pasture,”
said the soft voice, “and given he'll be feeding them as if they
were pulling guns, then they'll be most inclined toward getting home
when Sarah goes to pick them up.”

“Trouble is, there will be swarms of
coach-riding witches all over the place then,” I thought, “and
witches living in coaches, and drunken witches fighting among
themselves, and witches shooting at anything and everyone who isn't
just like they are – and then, they'll shoot at those people also
on principle.”

There was no answer, and then I knew:
Sarah, to put it mildly, would have to sneak into Paul's town on
foot, get inside Willem's house – most likely during that portion
of the darkest night when the witches would be forced to 'crash' –
stay at Willem's house most of that day, hidden deep in his basement;
and then leave for home at the same time as she arrived the previous
day, moving quietly in the depths of the darkness so as to avoid
trouble with the swarms of drunk-as-stinkers witches.

“Will they bother the stone-wagons?”
I wondered silently. At least I had some idea what a stinker looked
like now – entirely black short stiff bristly fur, a white stripe
or stripes running from head-to-tail, a shape like that of an
emaciated wildcat, and smelly all
of the time, even when it had not
just fired a broadside.

Again, no answer. The obvious matter
to witches causing trouble in general was 'of course they
will, and that as much as they can'.

“They will try to do so until they
learn it to be most unwise,” said the soft voice. “There will
then be enough people up here who are able and willing to ride with
those deliveries to make it a very risky proposition for those
witches, and that first 'flush' of witches will be sending back
enough 'negative' reports to their 'leaders' that they will become
more cautious, at least to some degree in that area.”

“Still come up in complete swarms,”
I thought. That one group I had seen on the Low Way was indeed a
harbinger, and even with us doing as we could, the sheer number of
witches coming would accomplish something
– as those kind of numbers definitely got
into the realm where quantity
had a certain quality all its' own.

“And the house proper will thereby
procure a large portion of the continent's currency when they
try to take the house,” said the soft voice. “They will tend to
concentrate their immediate energies in certain places, at least for
their initial waves of 'invasion'.” Pause, then, they will spread
out a bit more once the bad reports start to filter back to
their now-current leaders.”

“Most of those people are so
drink-addled that they'll just yell for them to carry out the plans
regardless, and to quit bothering them with such trivial matters,”
I thought.

“More or less,” said the soft
voice. “That would be for those that are less-impaired. Those
that are more-impaired – they'll just send a lot more people to
those trouble-spots after they shoot the messengers conveying
such bad results to those hearing them.”

“Hence multiple instances of
defending where Maarten and Katje live – or, after the first
instance, where they once lived,” I thought I then had a
most-peculiar idea: retreat in the face of the witches, setting traps
for them as we did, and such a strategic withdrawal would catch their
guns and vehicles in the trenches, rendering them immobile...

And 'dead-easy' targets for our
flanking people – with emphasis on both words, and especially on
that word 'dead'.

Turning the place into a moonscape
would make it worse yet for the witches, as we could then snake
trenches among the explosion-craters and use the added wreckage to
make yet-more-effective hides for our people. I was jolted from this
strange revery when Sarah asked me to describe what I was thinking
of, as she could feel a definite aspect of 'planning for the future'.

“Uh, how we're going to deal with
those witches that come?” I said. “That place near Maarten and
Katje's is going to be a huge magnet for those stinkers, and they'll
try taking it multiple times, not just the once.” Pause, then,
“there is a grove of trees about half a mile off, isn't there?”

“If you speak of the trees to the
west, then you are right,” said Sarah. “There are some to its
north, but they're further yet away.”

“Which
is where we put some of the mortars,” I said. “We blast those
stinkers so the shells seem to come out of nowhere, and we build our
hides in those two forested places in addition to the trenches we dig
among the current wreckage, three or four or perhaps five rows in
this strange-looking gridwork of trenches deep enough to run in while
mostly protected from bullets and shells, and we shoot as many of
them as we can when they charge, then retreat back through our
mostly-covered trench network – and let them get stuckin those trenches, and then we can blow them up easily.”

“What is left of them,” said the
soft voice. “There may be some hundreds left by that time, and a
handful of coaches yet undamaged, but you can handle that
many.” Pause, then, “this time that is directly ahead of you
will give you-all good practice for how to deal with an enemy that
sometimes outnumbers you nearly a hundred to one.”

“That does not sound good,” said
Esther who then asked Sarah to adjust the rifle to her so it fit her
like it should. Once that was done, however, Esther surprised me.

She fired a single round, the blooming
white muzzle flash longer than Paul's buggy and the fireball nearly
as big as a beachball at its greatest point – and seemingly
instantly, a place in the woodlot to our side erupted in a massive
explosion, one that sent trees falling with mind-sundering crashes
and clouds of soot billowing crazily as the flames of distillate
burned their all in a finely atomized spray over the course of
perhaps a few seconds.

Driven by high-explosive, light
distillate made a decent fuel-air explosive all by itself.

“You just shot a witch,” screeched
Sarah.

“I know,” deadpanned Esther. “I
think I will want to try that stuff you name Komaet, as I did
not bring any of that special jug's Geneva – and that shot made me
sore.” A pause, this while she made the rifle 'safe' with
Sarah's instructions, then when Sarah looked at her ammunition, Sarah
exclaimed, “these bullets are those that have hollowed points, and
not normal ones, but the really hot ones that you
got.”

“Yes, I know,” said Esther. Her
sang-froid was remarkable. “I was told I wanted some of
those handy, as any witches I will be likely to see in the next few
days will be some distance away, they will be single individuals or
in small groups, and they will be trying to stay hidden as much as
they c-can until dark. There will be a few more of them showing
then, but there's a lot
of trouble where most of them have been hiding.”

“Wasps, hornets, and toxic fumes?”
I asked.

“Those and trouble moving along
their preferred paths,” said Esther. “It seems many of their
witch-carts have been broken down where they like to travel, so their
vehicles are broken and their roads are blocked in places when
dynamite went off in them.”

“They'll fix those quick
enough,” I murmured. “They have a lock on all the rail
production on the continent, and...”

“Not quite, unless you speak of the
size used for repairing and adding to the secret way,” said the
soft voice. “Most of the rails on that road date from the
time of that war long ago, and those damaged ones will be replaced by
pieces made by a Blomfels-owned firm, one which uses both the best
equipment for such work currently operating in the fifth kingdom
house – but they have an effective monopoly because they're the
only people on the continent who can actually do those rails
such that they'll bear the traffic they commonly receive on the
secret way.”

“Blomfels does not do anything
worth using,” said Sarah. “Is this stuff different?”

“It seems to be,” I said.
“Witch-grade explosives are better than those sold to non-witches,
so it's possible these people roll such rails and dedicate
them to, uh, propagating their rubbish – and since selling
that rubbish is their chief source of income, they want
to make sure that rubbish actually gets to its
chiefest markets. Hence, they do not 'short' anything
on those rails, and they've kidnapped the best people they
could find, branded them on the forehead as slaves so as to prevent
them escaping to their former locations in the fourth kingdom, and
then feed them enough 'slave-rations' to keep them alive and
productive while chaining them to their machines for as long as they
dare per day.”

I paused, then, “given what they're
trying to do and what they're using for equipment, they need to do
their very best to make up for its shortcomings, and they make a lot
of scrap with that equipment – that, and it breaks down a lot,
so if one must be a slave laboring for Blomfels, that's about
the best duty one might get – better food, enough food, shorter
hours, and the lash seldom if ever.”

“Not if you're a slave in a
Blomfels' manufactory,” said Sarah. “Lots of those people die,
and they die in droves.”

“These aren't commonplace
laborers,” I said. “While Blomfels keeps them as slaves, they do
want them to remain functional enough to produce the best
rails they can, as Blomfels knows where their moneycomes from and they want to keep getting those
bags of money. Hence they have to use some common
sense with those people, as they cannot just grab them from anywhere
and then work them like their usual people if they want to
consistently make rails that work.”

“In their case, you're right,”
said the soft voice. “However, outside of those people and a
handful of others, the rule in a Blomfels' owned concern is 'work the
slaves until they die' and those Blomfels' 'family' members shoot
those 'employees' who are slack in forcing their slaves to give their
all.”

In hearing the word 'faemelij',I could
feel its several varied meanings in this language that I
knew of, and one meaning in particular, this exemplified by
the people who had run where I last had worked, that being that realm
whence I had come; or, more likely, a genuine 'Sicilian' family,
one of those groups where 'Omerta' was practiced daily as the rule of
life, and the only other rules came from one's chief or overseer, and
at the top, where the head himself reigned as an uncrowned
king, all that
mattered to him was his 'inclination of the moment'.

“Mafia,” I thought. “Those
Blomfels people operate a lot like the Mafia, and those
stinkers wanted their money to keep on coming in steady when and
where they could, so they did whatever – and whoever
– they needed to do so as to make that happen. No
rules at all save that one – get the money or else you die.”

I paused, this while looking westward
over long-rowed green fields populated with groups of people, many of
them using hoes and others using what might have been huge brass
tweezers for the removal of insects from their plants. Their goal
was to keep their plants in their rows, the rows smooth and even, and
eventually, be able to harvest enough food for themselves and to sell
so as to purchase things they needed – and perhaps, pay debts owed
to others. I then had another impression.

“Mafia,” I thought. “Just
like those stinkers overseas that actually run that place.”

“That is but one source among
a number regarding their knowledge,” said the soft voice. “Those
intercepts are not only unknown by the 'commons', but are equally
unknown by those blue-suited functionaries and many 'layers' of those
over them, as only that small handful that actually 'governs' that
place has ready access to them.” Pause, then, “some of
the language present in those intercepts has filtered down over the
years to the functionaries, but they are utterly unaware of its
sources.”

“Those intercepts?” I asked.

“They who have access to them study
them closely and at length,” said the soft voice. “You've
heard of those particular books and videos where you came from, and
even read some works written by their author.”

“Wonderful,” I thought. I could
guess who it might well be, given I'd never been that
attracted to the intricacies of that life. I knew just where
it went for someone like myself, and I did not
wish to go there. “Given they try to emulate the Mafia,
then those blue-suited thugs should be called 'enforcers', as they
are not soldiers.” The word that rang in my head was 'Soldati',
and I was not inclined to speak that word, as it might well conjure
droves of thoroughly-unpleasant 'whites'. I'd already seen more than
my share of those, and that
being before coming
here.

However, another sudden realization
landed upon me like an oven-heated brick dropping hard and heavy out
of the sky: each 'enforcer', if he wished to become a made man,
had to either kill a vast number of animals – or, if he wished to
be promoted and 'climb the ladder' toward a position of
leadership – he had to kill a lot of people.

Bloody hands were a sign of
true significance among blue-suited silver-collared brainless
thugs, as having a pair of blood-spattered hands upon
'returning to base' meant post-haste promotion and a radical
increase in status in their world, both among the other thugs like
them and those in leadership over them; and the more frequent such
bloodlettings occurred, the more the causal agent of such bloodbaths
was likely to be promoted.

“A lot of those spies started as
those blue-suited brainless thugs, didn't they?” I thought.

While I had no answer from the source
I most wished to hear, I had a most-distinct impression: I would get
such an answer shortly. When we changed the animals pulling the buggy
again, I noted someone else, this person or group northbound: large,
imposing, making dust like that of a lightning-hare's 'thunder-run'.

“What is that making all of that
dust to the south?” I asked softly.

“I believe that making the dust to
be stone-wagons,” said Paul. He was busy harnessing a 'fresh'
horse, a horse that once more seemed nearly as restive as it had in
the manse. “There are a lot of those things on this road, and they
run them in these long groups from the quarries. They leave for the
Abbey as soon as they have enough stone cut to put a load on the
wagons they have.” Pause, then, “they get a lot of broken stone
that way, but most of what they cut from the quarries gets to where
it belongs in one piece.”

“Those broken blocks are worthless,
Paul,” said Sarah. “If they cannot endure such travel, they will
not last if put into a wall, and the wall made of them will be a weak
one, one that falls soon.”

These dust-billowing wagons were
coming closer in what looked to be a great hurry, which would mean
single file for us, this along the right edge of the road, and then
either navigating carefully amid the slow-settling clouds of dust or
waiting for it to settle to a degree before attempting to 'eat dust'.

We would eat dust in ample measure
regardless. I had another question, however; it bore upon how much
and how long we would 'eat' such dust.

“How big is that run ahead?” I
asked.

“Big enough,” said Willem. “I
hope they won't lay dust like that when they pass us.”

Willem's hope was in vain, for the
long 'train' of stone-wagons, each softly groaning with an
eight-horse team of animals that looked like those we were running
for size and 'stoutness', came by at a rapid and dust-raising rate,
and when I counted twenty such 'fast-moving' wagons, each of them
laden with a cargo of 'cleaved' stone blocks of roughly the right
size, I knew it was folly to continue until the dust of their passage
settled.

I also knew we would have to wait the
thick dust cloud out, and as the dust slowly settled, I felt a
most-obvious sense of approval.

I was learning what mattered and what
did not, and I did not use what I was given for personal comfort or
gain. It was never given for that, but much bigger things;
and though I sneezed more from the dust than any two of the others as
we finally got under way, I somehow had an impression.

That was the last dust I would most
likely 'eat' here. I would not breathe dust like that again.

“Why, will I die overseas?” I
thought. That was the simplest and most-obvious solution

“No, but you will get the
help you need, including cleaning out all of what you
just breathed and a great deal more,” said the soft voice. “That
kind of dust is bad for you.”

As if to remind me of the troubles
associated with 'eating dust', I began coughing, and I spat a number
of grayish blobs, all of which began smoldering the instant
they hit the road, much as if they were from a time spent at length
working down in the fifth kingdom house. I felt like one of that
place's 'lungers', those hot upon the road to slave-bound perdition.
Slavemasters caught such people and whipped them to death to both
keep their slaves in line and satisfy their lust for death and blood.

“Those wagons are trouble enough,
but I think he should stay clear of them and their dust, Sarah,”
said Esther – who was doing her own coughing and spitting. “Now
what was this I heard about help?”

“I'm not sure what it will be,
beyond I need it badly and it will help me,” I said.

“Good, because saying you need that
help is calling the pot dirty when it is filled with burnt meat,”
said Esther. “If Anna does not know how to cook buzzard right,
I can help her. It's best parboiled before roasting under cover, as
that releases the fumes from such meat.”

“And if it is
not parboiled?” I asked.

“Your oven might
explode as if it were fueled with distillate,” said Sarah
ominously. “That's why the usual is to roast it over an open fire
on long iron pokers, which is what I and those traveling with me
usually did when we were lucky enough to secure one.”

“Lucky enough?”
I asked.

“If Gabriel told
you those things were wily enough to make one think them drunk, he
was repeating what he heard from some ignorant wretch,” said Sarah.
“I've put enough lead in those things to fill three large
shot bags, and another bag with balls, and I got a buzzard at
least once a trip.”

“Yes, and how
many times did you put lead in them until you got one?” asked
Willem.

“About three out
of four, at least at first,” said Sarah. “One must be a very
good sneak if one wishes to have a buzzard to broil, and hunting
buzzards taught me how to be an especially good one, them and the
witches I ran into with my cousin.” Pause, then, “by the time of
my last year, I could usually get close enough to a roosting buzzard
that I could put soot on it, and when I did that, I had that
thing.”

“Stiff shot, correct?” I asked.
“Full loads, and both barrels, and try for the thing's head?”

“That also,” said Sarah. “You
need to shoot those in the head, as they will ignore nearly
anything less than what you used on that first one you shot, and the
only reason that bird didn't ignore that one was that bullet broke
both of its wings and hurt it so badly it could barely move.”

“He told me it tried to get away
anyway,” said Esther. “Buzzards tend to do that, which makes me
wonder if they do consume
mash.”

“Anesthetized
birds?” I asked.

“I am not sure
what that word means,” said Sarah.

“They act like
they drink that tincture for pain?” I asked.

“I doubt that,”
said Sarah. “They would have nothing but nightmares.” A pause,
this to look around, then at the sun as it still hung in the eastern
sky. It might have dropped a very small amount. We still had a very
long day ahead of us.

“We might have
another five miles,” said Sarah. “Now I hope your horses can
last, Willem.”

“They can, but
they'll want an entire bucket of mash each and a roll in what hay you
have,” said Willem. “They'll be up to a trip tomorrow to the
house proper, but afterward, that trip back from there does not sound
at all good, not in this buggy.”

“Take it in two
stages, stopping where we live for a time” said Sarah. “It will
not have as much in it, most likely, so you travel the back ways...”

“No, Sarah, that
will not be the case,” said Esther. “We will need to run the
roads thrice on this one, and pull the wheels between each run, and
that to help bring all you have for that trip.”

“N-no,” I
said. “Just let me load your vehicle, and it might need but
one instance, and then you can take my copied list back with you and
make the other buggy's loads up for it when it shows.” Pause,
then, “worst case, you could get Georg in on the business.”

“I will
speak with him before he leaves tonight to take those swords,” said
Sarah, “and after what happened last night, he will listen
to me.”

Sarah needed to
speak no more upon that matter, as Georg, even though his patience
far exceeded mine, was hungry for news of his buggy. I wondered if I
should speak to him regarding the nature of his house being burgled,
and then, I felt a distinct 'wait'. He would need to 'stand and
deliver', and have the suspicions of a vast multitude once more
put upon him by 'delivering up trash' when people had paid for
solid workable items, those being regarded as being close to 'crown
treasures', and he...

“No, not him,”
I thought. “Hendrik is going to get confirmation as to the
true nature of the enemy we face, and it won't be from his
usual sources, but a man who's been suspected of some kind of
wrongdoing for years and lately has proven himself to be
more-or-less beyond suspicion.”

“Especially
since you arrived,” said the soft voice. “They've really
been 'putting the screws to him' in multiple ways, and killing
members of his family has but cemented his resolve to fight them –
which is but one reason he went on the rampage in that one
town.”

“And hence he
will be told as to what will happen to where I work, then,” I said.
“He'll see the formal document then, and learn just who
will be drawing up the plans.” I then gasped.

“No, not me, I
hope.”

“You will
have some input, but no, the actual plans will not be drawn up by you
but by some of those people from the Valley that that one 'excitable'
individual has under him – and he'll look over the finished result
to make certain they're right,” said the soft voice. “It isn't
merely him, by the way – he knows a lot of people with real
construction experience in the area that are or will be heading
toward the Abbey, and one of them will be asking you questions
while he takes notes – you, Sarah, those of his countrymen who do
foundry work, those that run machinery, and whoever else they can
find that looks 'likely'.”

“Including some
of those from across the sea,” I murmured.

“They come in
later,” said the soft voice. “They'll most likely install
some of their machines, but they need a proper foundation for
those things, not dirt like you have now – and those people will
put that in first, and more, they'll do much of that work
while you-all are gone.”

“What?” I
squeaked. This sounded as if 'too good to believe'.

“Yes, the entire
shop will be drastically renovated,” said the soft voice, “as
well as have the yard's boundaries extended, a shorter watchtower
installed for helping guard the place from intruders, and the
foundations laid for a number of buildings – buildings that dwarf
the current ones for size.” Pause, then, “there won't be a lot
of those people on site, but they will use that 'time of no Cabroni
handy' to the fullest extent they can, and they will keep
people up all night in those houses next to the shop, as they will be
working around the clock in rotating shifts.”

Somehow, however, I had the distinct
impression that 'there won't be a lot of those people' did not
mean 'one or two'; there would be closer to twenty laboring with
frantic intensity during some periods, periods lasting a current week
or more, as they knew that the shop would need to produce a lot
of the tools they would need to use at the Abbey: but these people...
They had definite
plans, now that their first 'big' kiln was ready for its first
firing. It was due to run any day – or, for that matter, any
night. Life ran nearly around
the clock right now in the settlements, what with the sheer number of
people coming in from the Valley. Those settlements had five people
where there used to be one, and many of these latest
escapees were both 'educated'
and 'skilled' – as
well fatigued from a long journey, a journey that tested what faith
they had, and grew that faith like a well-fertilized weed. The
ones that didn't become
entirely committed diedlongbefore they left the
confines of that dessicated realm.

“Cement?” I
asked. “Concrete?”

“Correct, as
some of those currently coming from the south and west are
knowledgeable in its use, and they will 'stop over' for a few days so
as to get the floors in the existing buildings right. More, you may
expect a complete lack of stumps, proper double-paned windows with
metal shutters, and more, doors to the front and rear that are
sturdy and seal tightly against the weather.”

“And a chimney,”
I murmured. “They'll actually make one of those for the
building to keep it aired out properly, and more or less redo the
roof entirely.”

“True,
they will, as they know that the wind in this area is
typically at least thirty feet above the usual rooftop,” said the
soft voice. “It won't need to be a huge one, either, and they know
about how to get that equipment you 'reworked' to make the right
sized pieces for such a stack, as well as the 'smoke-vane' to assure
the best possible draft.”

“Smoke-vane?”
I asked.

“What they
called something that used to pivot so its face was into the wind and
the rear portion sucked fumes out of its back,” said the soft
voice. “They now have something better that does not need such
tinkering and has no moving parts, and it pulls out more hot
air and fumes than what they used to use.” Pause, then, “the
only way you'll get more fumes out of the place is to put a
high-volume fan in the inlet, but I doubt you'll wish one of
those.”

“Doubt?” I asked. I looked
around, these to see occupied fields on both sides. That said a town
was in the area, even if Roos still seemed several miles south yet.

“They make a great deal of noise,
just like your computers did before you took so many steps to
'silence' them,” said the soft voice. “They will
implement such equipment on their mainframes overseas when they learn
of what you did, as that will both improve their reliability and make
those machines a lot quieter.”

“Only a few
things then in my life were louder than those fans in the computers,”
I murmured, this softly. I did not wish to distract the farmers,
even though I could feel a witch in the area. I then noted
just where this person was, that being in a copse 'hidden' mostly
below-ground in an unplowed area. For some reason, I just wished
this person to leave his shelter, and I whistled.

This time, I did
hear more than the usual 'bubbling' noise: I heard a shrill screech,
a screech so loud and piercing that while the mostly-drunk witch
didn't hear it, the trio of pigs he had with him, even in their
drink-sodden state, most definitely heard it.

And seeing an
unplowed region suddenly erupt pigs and a black-dressed witch leap
convulsively out of his hide and into plain view, face-grease and
all, made for a large number of farmers suddenly stand up from
their labors.

More than a few of
these men were armed, and while they let the pigs run their separate
ways, that could not be said for the witch: he caught an absolute
hailstorm of musket balls from every farmer within fifty paces, and
he fell back down into his hide and out of sight, limp as a dead sack
of meal – this before he could do anything save become a
lead-mine.

“That witch will
do nothing in that place there except rot,” said Paul, who spat
onto the road. “He is a dead man.”

“Are you certain
of that?” said Sarah – who then looked at me. “You are
getting better at whistling, as that one gave me a sick-headache, it
was so loud.”

“It works better
yet on functionaries,” said the soft voice, “and given
that witch was using those pigs to cart his dynamite, it was a good
thing he didn't shoot into that hole he had.”

“Boom?” I
asked.

“It will do that
regardless later today, but there will not be any farmers
handy to get hurt or killed then when his load explodes,” said the
soft voice. “One of them is noticing right now just how much
those pigs like weeds, and he's talking to anyone nearby who
is inclined to listen – and him speaking of weeds is getting some
attention.”

“Weed-eaters,”
I said. “Hence the word will get out now.”

“It already has
in some places, but it will now become a commonplace
matter of 'gossip' in this area,” said the soft voice, “and
if it is commonplace 'gossip' in Roos, it travels far and
fast.”

On we went, leaving the farmers with
their three 'weeder-pigs' now hungrily devouring weeds, and the
comments coming fast yet faint upon the wind were most-edifying. The
common type of pig really
liked a lot of commonplace weeds found in the fields of farmers; and
while now and then, they went off the fields to 'unload' their
'slime', these animals could not be faulted for their industry. It
gave me more than a few ideas as to why some Veldters would wish them
for laboring in 'those dark places' where a fair number of those
people actually worked.

“Cooler
underground in those places, also,” I thought. “Electric
lighting?”

“Is more
frequent underground than you might imagine, especially in their work
areas,” said the soft voice. “Granted, the largest bulb they
might use on those lines is a ten-watter, but between the
construction of those lights and their fixtures, as well as how many
of those light fixtures are in use, they keep their holdings lit
passably at the least.”

This pace of
travel made for such boredom that I now dozed off to awaken with a
start within plain sight of Roos. I wondered how long I had been
'out', at least until I saw that the other horses had been changed
over again. More, the wheels of Paul's buggy were now beginning to
make noise, this a faint groaning amid periodic higher-pitched
squeaks.

“How long have
those been, uh, 'squeaking'?” I asked.

“Since about two
minutes ago,” said Sarah. She sounded irritated. “I suspect he
stinted the red-paste, that, or he forgot it entirely and put tallow
in its place.”

“No, not
tallow,” I said. “That would have had s-smoke coming out of
those things a long time ago with this load.”

“You are right
about that,” said Willem. “Paul, how much red-paste did you put
to this thing? Did you put grease with it?”

Paul seemed
utterly confused, then held up a finger and said, “I put some on
with my finger, but I thought you only wanted a little, so I was very
sparing with that stuff, as I know how hard it is to get and how much
you speak of wanting thrice what you can get.”

Sarah all-but
clouted Paul with one of those green clubs, she was so irritated, and
her voice rose up into a shrill howl. “Paul! You
brass-cone-wearing-wretch! You knew we would be about kingdom
business, so you stinted something when doing so would put us all in
the belly of Brimstone! How could you!”

“I suspect he
didn't know much beyond what little he was told,” said Esther,
“which was very little. Willem's almost as busy as he is” –
here, she indicated me – “and he wasted neither time nor words
regarding the matter.”

“And Paul
wonders where and when he can get more of that stuff, and he wants
three full tubes where he currently has one tube that's mostly
empty,” I murmured. “I doubt we will smoke the wheels
going this much further.”

Yet for some
reason, something strongly moved me to pray about the state of
Paul's wheels, and as the wheels themselves went 'hazy', I saw them
billowing smoke, this at first thin and gray, then a solid sooty
black stream as small tongues of fire came out of the joint between
wheel and axle – as the effect of friction between two
heavily-loaded wooden surfaces acted exactly like a fire-starting
'drill' used in some cultures where I came from.

I shook my head,
then muttered, “what was that?”

“The buggy is
going a lot better now,” said Paul. Willem then looked over at the
nearest axle.

“You did not
have sleeved wheels on this thing,” he spat. “Now you do, and I
wonder why you got them, you smelly wretch!”

“Because he will
need to travel a great deal farther from today on, and that distance
much faster than he used to,” said Esther, “and I will need to
put the oil to that thing every morning when I wake up in case he
leaves the house with his brain still in his bed.”

“Besides, it
will give you a third more speed,” I said, “and your horses will
have a much easier time pulling it, so you can make a much
longer trip in the time it used to take a short one – and it will
not be merely tomorrow, Paul and Esther. It will be many
times in the next few months.” Here, I paused, then turned to
Esther. “Esther, get some of that thicker stuff Hans has
planning for buggy-lubricant. You put that in those cups, and
it will not leak out when the thing is stationary, so one dose per
day will usually do the trick.”

“Yes, but will
it get into the joint between the cup and the cone?” asked Esther.

“It does, but
it's thicker than that oil,” I said. “More fourth kingdom
grease, perhaps three times as much, and a little bit of red-paste,
and a little bit more boiled distillate, and it's like a really thick
oil, one that flows down into the bearing and spreads over it once it
starts turning. One dose does you for a long day's traveling, which
is why Hans has been thinking of it – as he's had to dose the
wheels in that medical buggy twice today already, and he knows that
won't do for an all-day jaunt at the buggy's best speed.”

“For that buggy,
yes,” said the soft voice. “You want a thinner oil for the
medical buggy, as you normally need to stop periodically to put grain
and water to your horses.” Pause, then, “that buggy is also
lightly loaded as a rule, and what you just spoke of is fairly close
to what is needed for an 'extreme-pressure lubricant' suitable for
heavily-loaded slow-turning bearings that get moderately warm.”

“Like, uh, steam
engines for ships?” I asked.

“Were you to
build one, that mixture would serve,” said the soft voice. “You'll
have better lubricants in short order, and then building a suitable
engine will be an easy matter.”

“They will wish
such a damp-motor, unless you have an idea for another type,” said
Sarah. “Those things they call 'turns' at the Heinrich works would
almost work, but those need a marked person handy when they're
running.”

“Uh, no,” I
said. “Not this type. Not given the level of ignorance people
tend to have regarding 'engines' and their tendency to think
'anything having more than a dozen parts is a fetish.” Pause,
then, “It will need to be totally enclosed, simple to
use – as in 'fill this container full of good aquavit, keep this
needle in the green on the gage here, watch the sight gage on the
tank marked 'oil', and adjust this lever here to give the speed
desired by the 'ship leader' ' – and then they can manage
it.” Another pause, then this muttered, “going to want more than
one, though, in case something goes wrong while underway. They can
still progress to their destination and then home, and once in port,
they can send the 'messed up' engine back to the factory for
repairs.”

“What would
those be..?”

Here, Sarah ceased
speaking, for with the sleeves upon our wheels, Roos was drawing
closer in a hurry. Paul and Willem could really see
the difference in our speed with Paul's newly sleeved wheels, as
these horses were 'stout' animals, ones fit for pulling heavy loads;
and with the drastic loss of friction, the net result was they were
having a much easier job. That meant half again as much speed
at the least.

“Still going to
need to pull the wheels,” I murmured. “I have a mostly-full tube
of red-paste, so I'll check them over and grease them up right when
you have that thing up on the kegs in the buggy-way.”

That would be in a
very few minutes, or so I suspected – and as those minutes passed,
Roos still seemed to be coming closer fast. We were now in
the fields that were tilled by those dwelling in town, and a smell,
this at once gut-clenching and horrible, seemed to waft toward me.

It was the stink
of death, and ahead, I could 'see' vast numbers of people
cleaning their houses out, this working as if Brimstone awaited
hungrily for them, and each further second saw buckets of red-stained
water come flying out into yet more-blood-stained yards, there to
seep into the ground and make it dark with blood and gore for an age
and a half.

“When did they
finish moving the bodies?” I asked silently.

“About two hours
ago,” said the soft voice. “Between Tam, August, and
Georg, they were kept at it steadily until every body that was
found within half a mile of Roos was first undressed, their markings
noted by all and sundry – as in they laid the bodies out in rows
for some hours while they were being undressed, and then their heads
removed with corn-knives – and Tam told off a detail to cut numbers
of saplings to size so as to spike every one of those heads in
concentric rings about that 'meat-hole'.” Pause, then, “none
of these people is going to sleep more than two hours a night for
roughly a week and a half, as you made quite the mess in their homes,
and that apart from the lack of doors and windows.”

Without doors and
windows, there was nothing these people could hide from each
other; and that state, given the lack of ready-to-fit doors in town
and the near-total lack of glass-workers, would be the case for
months.

“Serve them
right, then,” I smirked, as we came into our own yard. Unlike
those nearly everywhere else in town, our yard only showed
bloodstains here and there, not solid masses of blood and gore; and
the yard of the house next door now had a wooden sign on a thick
planed post planted just past the tumbled down and still-smoldering
ruins, this labeled with surprising neatness:

“If
you think like a witch, you will die like a witch,

and
this is the thing which awaits you.

Read
it carefully, and think long and hard

before
you turn toward evil ways.”

“Who wrote that?” I asked
silently.

“Georg,” said the soft
voice, “and that shortly after he woke up just after you-all left
for the house proper this morning. Don't be surprised if he comes by
when Anna goes into the Public House, as his injuries need some
attention, and he wants that map Sarah gave him annotated so he knows
where he will be going when he 'tries to break the record for the
distance traveled' while moving 'in the darkest hour' of the night.”

“Bathing and cleaning, most likely,”
said Sarah, as she stiffly got out of the bed of the buggy and went
toward the horses tied to the rear and I slid off of Jaak. I nearly
collapsed as my right knee tried to give way, and I put my hands upon
it so as to 'lock' it back into position. It was really
acting up now.

“Inside with you, and set on the
couch,” said Esther in a voice not less than that of 'command' as
issued by Anna herself. “We can get the rest of what is in here
inside, and I can get her stove going, if it has a fire in place or
not.”

I limped indoors, and there, I shed
rifle, machine pistol, and possible bag. To my left stood three or
four tall mounds of supplies and another wider-yet tall mound of
bags, and I knew it was up to me to decipher which of them needed to
go tomorrow. As if to remind me, a number of bags seemed faintly
hazed with blue, and as I withdrew my small brass clipboard, I noted
someone had tied a writing dowel to it.

“Best reorganize this thing,” I
thought, as I started going through it. Within seconds, however, I
knew a matter more pressing, and I found a small rag-wrapped bundle
tied with a red ribbon. One whiff told me what it was.

“That silly medicine-soap,” I
murmured, as I hobbled toward the kitchen, this now unburdened of
much of what I had been carrying. I was still limping, and when I
opened the wood-door of the stove, I noted a mound of still-glowing
coals.

“These will serve,” I thought, as
I tossed some smaller pieces of wood – kindling – atop
them, then used a longer stick to make a 'bed' of coals and laid
perhaps eight to ten more 'smaller' pieces of wood, then a few
perhaps the size of my wrist, with open places between all of them.
“Now for a bucket, and...”

Esther had arrived, and with
surprising speed, she had not merely checked my 'laying of the fire',
but also adjusted the dampers up slightly and asked for a good-sized
pot. Meanwhile, Paul brought the large pot of 'buzzard' in the
kitchen and put it where Esther indicated.

“Anna speaking of you being lost
around a stove is news to me,” said Esther. “You did that
fire as good as I could, even if you did not open the air inlet and
damper.”

“She seldom touches those,” I
said.

“You must not watch her much,”
said Sarah, as she brought in the first of three armloads of clubs.
“These things will wish a thorough cleaning with aquavit, as they
stink too much like functionaries for me to like it much. Now is
that stove heating your bathwater?”

“Yes, dear,” I said. “I have a
small lump of that solid soap, and...”

“I found one in my satchel also,”
said Sarah. “Wrapped in a rag, tied with a red ribbon?”

“Y-yes,” I said. “I wonder how
good it will work.”

“I think you should try it first, as
you can get your bath while Esther and I get this place ready to
cook,” said Sarah. “I can manage when she's around to tell me
what to do in this place, as otherwise I'm lost.”

“He's less so than I thought, and a
lot less so than Anna has spoken, as he did a good
job of laying that fire,” said Esther. “I'll need to add more
wood in an hour, but he moved the coals out in an even bed, then put
the right size and number of sticks for a steady boil – and we will
be doing that on that thing, once we all get unloaded and Paul goes
down to the Public House for two more
jugs of beer.” Pause, then, “are you planning on hoarding them?”

“No, but we are
planning on boiling those things out tonight so as to fill them for
our trip tomorrow,” said Sarah. “There is much for all of us to
do, and not merely in the kitchen. We will be working downstairs
also.” Sarah then looked at me.

“Best remove
that other stuff, your boots and stockings also,” she said. “I
might want to look those stockings over, as I just finished knitting
another pair for you.”

“Another pair?”
I asked.

“You need a lot
of those things, and you wear them out quickly,” said Sarah. “I'm
glad I can do them as quick as I can.” Pause, then, “the ones
for women will be a hands-span longer, especially with those
boots.”

“Those boots?”
asked Esther. “Those he has are trekking boots. Will these be
different?”

“In some ways,
yes,” said Sarah, “but they will be strange boots, of odd
coloring – green-flecked and brown, a bit dull yet somehow shiny,
and they will...” here, she paused, and looked at her knees.
“They will go more than half way to the knee, and they will have
that stuff that's in that vest in them, so they will do a good
job of protecting one's feet.”

“You left out
the lining, dear,” said the soft voice. “Those boots will be
very comfortable to wear, and a lot of women overseas will
desire them when they become known of.” Pause, then,
“they'll call them boat-boots, and that for a very good
reason.”

“Waterproof?”
I asked.

“Got it in one,”
said the soft voice. “Also, like some medical shoes, those
can have a warm-formed titanium shield for ones' toes, so no more
mashed or shot-off toes from nasty black-dressed thugs.”

“They have a
special name for those people,” I said, as I carefully divested
myself of vest and boots. The stockings smelled bad enough that I
tossed them into the bathroom immediately.

“I thought so,”
said Esther. “He needs two pair of those things for every day he's
wearing shoes, and he needs to look after his feet better.”

“Why do you
think I've been knitting when and where I can on those things?”
said Sarah. “I know he needs a lot of stockings, and had I the
inclination, I could make a fair amount of money just knitting
stockings for guards.”

“Your, uh,
cousin?” I asked.

“Is listening to
Annistæ describing a machine that turns out knitted
stockings at the rate of one every few minutes,” said the soft
voice. “She is most desirous of trying to make one, but
Annistæ has little knowledge of how those things work.”
Pause, then, “there are people she knows or can readily get in
contact with who do, however, and you'll meet one of them
tomorrow in your 'gun-class'.”

“Someone where
she came from?” I asked.

“A born member
of the Rooster Totem, and more, 'an expert toolmaker' – the kind of
person who teaches those named Makinekalæ.
More, she's quite familiar with making the parts needed for
both 'washing machines' and a lot of other things made in the
valley – and since this woman has a number of markings beyond the
trivial, she's eventually planning on living in the house proper in
the same area as Annistæ and Deborah.”

“For
the time being, that is,” I said. “They all will need to
experience 'purple haze' – or
will they?”

“Very
much so, and for the entire time, or as close as is possible,”
said the soft voice. “They'll not only learn a lot, but Deborah
will get the schooling she has wished she had gotten at the west
school while she's in 'the black hole' – or, as it is called
overseas, 'the black sack'.”

“Ooh,
I've read of that,” said Sarah. “It's in at least one old
tale...”

“Then
you had best tell me about it while he gets his bath,” said Esther,
who looked at the pot I had set for water as I went out the back
bathroom door to fetch two buckets of water.

I
had to make several trips, this to both replenish the 'boiling pot'
kept on the back of the stove, and on the third trip, that for my
bath water, I noted Esther looking at that boiling pot. She then
asked a question.

“How
hard would it be for you to make a pot like that with a cap like on
one of your distilleries?” asked Esther. “I think we want to
distill water for drinking, as she's been telling me about this one
device called a m-micro-s-scope.” Esther paused, felt her tongue,
then said, “I never said that word before, and Sarah said it had
once knotted Anna's tongue.”

“It
most likely will no longer do that,” said Sarah. “I was quite
surprised that one word did, actually, as there aren't many words in
a Gustaaf that are able to put my tongue out, and their number is
much smaller than it used to be.”

My
water began a slow boil not five minutes later, and pouring the stuff
into the two buckets already in the tub made for a pleasant warmth.
Once inside, and completely disrobed, I was in the tub, using that
'silly' soap...

And
within less than a minute, I was surfeited with bubble-bath.
More, this stuff didn't just tickle; it had some serious
shot-removal capacities, such that it made that nice-smelling stuff
made with roses seem worthless in every area save its smell.

“Sarah
has a small piece of that soap in a vial, which she hopes to have
duplicated,” said the soft voice as I moaned with pleasure. I
could feel 'sores' opening up and being cleaned out, as well as now
and then, shot dropping out of my hide. I'd shed most of it
earlier, but this was getting the rest of what I'd caught today, and
showers didn't make one 'drop' shot like a good long soak in a
bathtub.

They
were good at getting one and one's clothing thoroughly clean,
which is why the 'commons' overseas commonly washed their clothing
underfoot while enjoying one of the few real pleasures they
had in this world – long warm showers, even with soap that was
'awful' as to function.

At
least they got plenty of that awful soap, save in the newer
places – places which had showers set up like those I had seen
before I had changed their programming.

“And
hidden video cameras,” I murmured. “And microphones. And
spy-apparatus in every single electric appliance that sends
back information via the power cord. Lights that don't merely shed
light, but lights that listen and watch what goes on in the room.
Every computer has a th-thought discriminator unit it in, a device
that reads your mind...”

“They
wish they could put those in a computer, but the interface is
a bit too invasive for it to be readily implemented by
functionaries, and a bit to obvious to the target,” said the soft
voice. “Otherwise, however, they do have such units – and
what they can do regarding 'reading your mind' is a gross and drastic
understatement.”

“Then why don't those spies...”

Suddenly, it all became clear. They
could infer what people
thought about by what they spent their time doing and when they did
it, hence measurement of resource consumption – as well as
listening and viewing – could, if fed into the correct computer
programs – give a surprisingly good picture of 'morale' and much
else of importance among 'the proles'.

“They might not
read minds like they can in medical establishments, but the level of
'electronic intelligence' used over there is well beyond anything
you've ever heard of, either in reality or fiction. Recall how much
Winston Smith was spied on?”

I nodded mentally.

“He would be
very glad he doesn't live there,” said the soft voice.
“That place might not read your mind that way like they can in a
theater, but the end result of their instrumentation and computer
programs gives a picture that's so similar as to accuracy and
detail that it might as well have a direct connection to your
brain regarding what happens in a lot of areas, those newer
'domiciles' and most places where people currently work being prime
examples of such intense surveillance.”

“And where the
functionaries lurk, there's a lot less, because they're so drugged
'revolt' is either too much for them, or it's going to happen in such
a stereotyped fashion that...”

“Those people do
everything as part of a designated group – almost like
hyper-indoctrinated 'cells' – and those individuals that might
be inclined to revolt against the leadership in any way are
systematically weeded out during that lengthy training period
those people undergo,” said the soft voice, “and when I said
'lengthy', I meant 'they start with young children and get nasty from
the very first day, and those doing that training stay
that way until said child either dies or finishes that years-long
intensive period of no-letup twenty-four-seven-three-sixty-five
period of training.”

“J-just
like me,” I stammered. I'd been punished by sleep deprivation at
the age of six for not
'learning my multiplication tables the very day I saw them'. I did
not have the discipline needed then to truly apply myself toward
math, as it was my
worst subject, and unlike many other subjects, I often needed
individualized attention and needed to put in an uncommon amount of
time and effort to learn it. Given that, I could
understand it, and then do it well – but that help was either rare
or costly, and at that age, my stepfather had 'his inclination of the
moment' and I had not
read his mind to learn it.

Hence the
punishment I supposedly deserved. I was to stay up until I could
recite them to a perfection; no rest for the wicked, supposedly. I
guessed he didn't know people learned poorly when they were tired,
but that was not the point of what he did.

No, I was causing
him trouble, and he wanted me under his boot. End of
discussion. Period. That was the whole point of that pointless
exercise. Never mind that I did learn my multiplication tables
within days without a shred of help from him.

That wasn't the
point. I was his property, his nigger, the slave he
could beat with near-impunity, and he was telling me that in
no uncertain terms.

Finally, I knew,
he more or less had tried to get my mother to 'toss' me to an
adoption agency, as he wished no part of 'my smelly rear' in his
world. His goal was not a pliant slave; his goal was my absence, and
how he achieved that was immaterial so long as he did not get caught
out.

“My, I really
must have unloaded a lot of shot,” as I stood up and then felt a
lot of stuff coming out of my body all over as the
'wound-blotches' shrank from dime-size to that of pinheads before my
eyes. “How did I get so many of those things?”

“Those weren't
fully healed,” said the soft voice. “and if you look at your
bagged clothing, you'll see quite a number of holes in it,
holes with bloodstains still present to a small degree. Now, drain
that tub, collect up the shot and balls, and then move that tub over
to the rear of the bathroom so someone can use one of the others
while your clothing soaks with laundry soap in that tub.”

I did as
instructed, for some new 'house-clothes' in my size were hanging,
this no less than three pairs, and when I put them on, I sighed.

Sarah had
obviously been very busy. Draining the tub, though, had me gasp,
both at how filthy the water was, but also, how much shot and balls
were in the tub.

“I am not
Bobs, so how can I spill a quart of lead?” I gasped.

“Measure that
stuff first,” said the soft voice. “You dumped a lot more
than that in that one room.”

I did, and I
filled no less than two of Anna's smallest measuring cups. More,
most of the shot was that shiny stuff, and to my surprise, a lot of
it was the 'green' size shot. I heard steps as the water finished
pouring out of the tub into the drain and I was bagging the shot up,
and I turned to see Anna.

“You must have
been traveling hard to get that dusty,” I said. “You did,
didn't you?”

“That, and got
dusted by three long lines of stone-wagons,” said Anna, “and I
shot several witches, and got some shot in my hide while doing that,
and Hans has some shot also, and we all need baths, all of us,
though...” Anna came closer, then asked, “now you got enough
shot in that bag for all of us. What happened to you?”

From the doorway
Sarah answered. “We had to clear out a house in Ploetzee, and
there were enough of those blue-dressed thugs with the silver collars
to fill three witch-holes and General's row, and they were all
like fifth-kingdom mining-town thugs that had been drinking
forty-chain for much of a year.”

“Did you get all
of them?” asked Anna. Her no-nonsense tone was a marvel.

“Yes, as far as
I know,” said Sarah. “He shut their hole and tossed a fumigator
down before doing that, and he sealed that door to his word alone.”

“Big enough to
kill a great many of them,” said Sarah. “More of them will die,
though how many more beyond 'more than half of them' is a very good
question.” Pause, then, “that place overseas will stay taken,
though, and that is the important part.”

“Anna, Sarah,
when can I get a bath?” asked Esther. “I have this strange
bundled parcel in my clothing, one tied with red ribbon, and I think
I might have shot I picked up recently.”

“How did she
get shot?” whispered Anna.

“I'm not sure,
even if she does enough with setting traps to have ample chance of
it,” said Sarah. “Now I most likely will dump a fair amount
also, and then everyone else, as we have had a hard day of it thus
far, and the day is far from over.”

“I am not
surprised,” said Anna. “I'd best get more water to boiling.
Hans, soon as you can, fetch more water for the wash-pot, and more
wood afterward, as we need a good hot fire in here!”

I finished my
business, and with the 'relative' absence of shot in me, I thought to
check out the stuff that had come out of my hide. The number of
'blemishes' on my skin was so much less that it looked nearly normal
again, save for a multitude of small 'pink' spots all over my body.
I thought to ask Anna how I looked while Sarah bathed.

I first wrapped up
the remnant of that medicine-soap, however, and tied it again with
its ribbon. I wanted to keep that stuff, as it had at least
three more baths left in that bar, and only once it was gone would I
get into the 'field soap'.

“Best save that
stuff for overseas,” I thought. My next thoughts were spoken,
however.

“Anna, do I look
strange?”

“Save for your
hair growing twice its normal length inside of a week, no,” said
Anna, “and Esther tells me you need that hair, and not
merely to hide things. You need it for that third kingdom port, as
there they will think you to be one of the Mule-Totem's men – and
those people give them a wide berth there.”

“They do?”
I asked.

“Yes, unless
Lukas told me a lie,” said Anna. “That other woman told me the
same thing, so I think it's a likely thing, though she said something
in her language that sounded worse yet.”

“What was that?”
I asked. “Oh, those medicines. I might be able to read them now,
and I might well know what they are good for.”

“She said your
understanding of her language was growing faster than anyone in one
of their old tales,” said Anna. “You'll most likely speak
it better than Sarah does inside of a week.”

“He nearly does
that already,” shouted Sarah from behind the door. “Anna, you
need to try this soap. It's like bathing with a pair of ticklers!”

“I could use
something to laugh about, as Hendrik went 'stupid' on me and I got
tossed by a fetish,” muttered Anna. “How he could have so many
of those things in his office, him being as careful as he is, is
beyond me, but I could feel something wrong close by and I got onto
it within ten minutes by his clock.”

“Where was this
thing?” asked Esther.

“In one of his
desk drawers,” said Anna. “I had to open most of them and poke
around inside them a bit until I found that thing, but when I saw
that reddish glowing that I've seen before, I knew what it was right
away. Hans had some tongs, so I had about gotten it out of the room
when it exploded and tossed me so that I bounced off of Hendrik's
desk and landed on the floor on the other side of it.”

“Wonderful,” I
muttered. “You most likely want Komaet.”

“Yes,” said
Anna tersely, “ only after I get a bath. Getting blown up
by a fetish does not help one's cleanliness, and it took me some time
to get what soot off I could, even with Annistæ helping me –
and that woman has her share of scars, and bad ones.”
Pause, this as Anna looked at me, then, “yours are worse, though.”

“What?” I
gasped.

“Most of them
barely show, but I can see them now,” said Anna. “The
ones you got at the third ditch would have killed several men, and
that alone, as I can see where you were stabbed and sliced on.”

“What?” I
gasped.

“I had a dream
where I saw how you got those weapons,” said Anna, “and while
I've seen you briefly looking like that, I had no idea how
anything short of an Iron Pig could fight like that – but I know
better now.” Pause, then, “that's one reason why you're
so sick, and then...” Here, Anna looked down, this to see my
knees.

She then surprised
me: “on the couch, put your legs up, and I'll fetch the Komaet
directly. Esther, you need to see this stuff work to believe it, and
bring plenty of spew-rags, as this stuff is worse for spewing than
anything.”

“Even what I
put up for risings?” asked Esther.

“I am not sure
if it is worse, but it is worse than any Geneva I have
smelled,” said Anna. “It tends to cause a lot of spewing.
I do know that much.”

I soon had my own
spewing to do, so much so that with rags soaked in the stuff on my
knees, I was one of three people spewing hard and long into rags.
The three of us dirtied up rag after rag, then gasps came from
outside speaking of 'Komaet' and mumbled replies from two others –
who were also trying not to spew and having very poor luck.

“Yes, and your
teeth go green with it, or so Anna tells me,” said Hans, between
instances of vomiting. “Then, you do not want to drink that
stuff.”

“Who would wish
to drink something that makes them spew worse than anything I've ever
gotten close to?” asked Willem – who then dirtied his own
rag, if I went by the noise.

“Some do,
supposedly,” said Hans. “This dream Anna had, it had children
speaking of it tasting like some kind of light distillate.”

“That stuff had
a special name,” said Anna. “I might be able to say that name
within a few days, but I doubt it to be a good idea.” Pause, then,
“they said it made one spew, and one was to get into it and then do
that.”

“We have it, and
it does make everyone smelling it spew,” said Hans. “Now, is
that stuff worse than yours, Esther?”

“It is, urp,”
she said, as she filled a rag. “Ours is bad, and that stuff – I
have no name for it.”

“It is worth
using, though,” said Hans. “Anna, lift up one of those rags
there, and show her what it does.”

Anna did so, and
Esther gasped between attempts to spew. “Paul! Forget what I make
for your knees! This stuff makes it look worthless.”

“Yes, I know,”
said Hans. “It wants a special still, one that is like a smaller
version of the older type, only no witch-markings, and then one
distills a mix of first or second-run stuff, or half aquavit and
water, and the berries and the other things it wants, and that is how
you get Komaet – which is what that man called it who wrote his
note that came back with the jug.”

“That and the
blessing, Hans,” said Anna. “We'll need to hide that, same as
the rest, and now I have some idea as to why we have been
bagging that stuff up.”

“It needs to be
done properly,” said Esther. “Doesn't it?”

“That is not the
half of it,” said Hans. “He found this big book full of
witch-letters, and some of those go back four hundreds of years.”

“Rigged
elections and all,” I muttered. “Hendrik got in in spite of
their attempting to rig that election, as the other man died
in a fight not three days before everyone was to come and make their
marks, and people from the fourth kingdom came up with full-loaded
roers to make sure no funny counting happened.”

“Good that I
wrote that down,” said Sarah. “I left a measuring cup of shot
and three pistol balls in that tub, and I know I shall wish to bathe
whenever I get the itch today and tomorrow.”

“I'm not getting
the itch?” I gasped.

“No, because you
dumped most of your lead, and that plated shot is nowhere near
as toxic – hence it travels to the surface a lot slower, and then,
it itches little compared to the regular stuff.” Pause, then, “it's
easy to not notice itching much when your knees hurt that
bad.”

“Each of them is
worse than Tam's bad one was,” said Sarah. “We might well ask
him what he did when and if he shows today.”

“He most likely
will, at least later tonight,” said Anna. “He was at the
house when we were going through that huge chemistry room they
have up there, and what they have for separating metals is so far
beyond what Andreas has...” Here, Anna paused, then said, “she
said she could turn out nearly a hundred pounds a day with what she
had there, once she gets something to turn that generator.” Here,
Anna was looking at me, then said, “It needs to turn a lot slower
than what runs that blower, as she said that type of generator was
usually used for that work, and more, that it was a real generator
like they use, one meant for such work.”

“Big, round,
turns slowly, has this dial on the side to adjust the current?”
asked Sarah. “Esther, you get the next tub, unless Anna has shot
to dump.”

Anna did, though
her bathing was commendably quick, and the odor that trailed her was
that of that 'nice' soap. What she said, however, surprised me.

“Even that stuff
will leave shot in the tub if you have it,” she said. “I saw
some special soap, and I am inclined to try it when I bathe next.
Esther, if you want a bath, now is a good time.”

“We need to boil
more water, as I need warm stuff for my bath,” she said. “I was
cut not two days ago by a witch, and cold makes that cut place hurt
more.”

“Cut?” I
gasped. “Where?”

Esther pointed to
an area high on her stomach, and said, “it did not go deeply, but
that witch paid for doing that later.”

“Uh, why?” I
asked.

“He had one of
those bad lanterns that smoke like a burn-pile, and I threw a rock at
it – and he had his burn-pile then, all right,” she said.
Pause, then, “Anna, I hope you can eat buzzard, as we got one of
those and a sizable fool-hen.”

“You what?”
gasped Hans.

“Just what I
said,” said Esther. “Willem had a lot of his vents blocked, and
most of those vents were blocked with bird-nests of one kind or
another,” said Esther. “I told one of the neighbors to not just
look after the children, but keep our stove warm for the first bird
he got.” Here, she indicated me. “Then, he shot the buzzard,
and now I know better about those things.”

“Yes, and what
is that?” asked Hans. He was totally interested in anything
about 'turkeys'.

“They smell like
leaky distilleries, Hans,” said Esther, “and all three of us were
spewing until it came up green.”

“Green, she
says,” I muttered, as I attempted to spew again. “Did Sarah show
you those green clubs we got from those stinky blue-suited
wretches with the silver collars?”

“Yes,” said
Esther. “Anna is getting her bath now, and I think I am going to
put two of those gold pieces on a still like she spoke of, as that
stuff makes risings go down faster than anything, and we will put
that still in our basement.” Pause, this as I sat up and began
rubbing my arms and legs with the still-damp smelly rags while trying
hard not to spew, then Esther said, “how hard are they to make?”

“Easier than a
fetish-still,” said Sarah. “They might not be very large, but
they're easily cleaned, they don't hardly clog if you run them
right...” Here, Sarah reached into her clothing, then drew out a
smaller ledger. “I copied that letter that came with that latest
jug of the stuff. Begin-quote: 'this still is the best one anyone in
our area has ever seen, and three more people are putting aside money
for inducements so as to have plenty of liniment for harvest time.
Everyone is sore now, but sore during the slow season and sore when
digging potatoes are not the same thing'. Finish-quote.” Pause,
then, “him saying that is calling the pot dirty when it is full of
stew burnt to charcoal, as I've dug potatoes with my cousin's
family during harvest, and sore is no word for how one gets
then!”

Esther then went
into the kitchen, and I could tell she was doing something with the
stove, then a sudden 'A-Ha!' told me she'd found something of use.
When I saw her putting up a heating stand and then a squat-tanked
'larger' heating lamp under the pot of 'buzzard', I murmured about
not being certain the stand would hold up such a weighty load.

“It seems to be
doing so,” said Esther. “Now you will be taking one of those
things overseas, won't you, and having it copied?”

“We were told
that, yes,” said Sarah – who was now scratching at her arm
slightly.

I was not
scratching; I wanted to scratch like a hound, and that
everywhere save in my nostrils and mouth.

“Anna, you may
wish to hurry,” said Sarah. “Both of us must have more shot to
dump, as I'm scratching and he looks like a mangy dog!”

Anna hurried
herself in a commendable fashion, and soon both of us were bathing,
this with medical soap. I was glad for the curtain dividing the
bathroom, but when I drained the tub this time, the amount of shiny
shot that showed was so great that I muttered about being a
lead-mine.

“Bathe twice
more before you sleep tonight,” said the soft voice. “You'll be
shedding shot every time you bathe for the next few days, and most of
it will be that shiny stuff.”

“There's enough
to stuff a double-barreled roer here twice over,” I muttered.
“This stuff looks like it could be cleaned good with distillate and
reused.”

“It can, and do
not be surprised if it is reused,” said the soft voice.
“Anna is wanting a slingshot, and she's put in an order for one at
the house proper before they left earlier today.”

Once back outside,
however, I found that I not merely needed dosing, but also, I had
business downstairs. There, I was to be the 'lead-master', as Hans
put it, as he, Paul, and Sarah needed to either run bullets or stiff
shot; and Hans had ample 'lead' for me to make up a pot of 'the hard
stuff'. I then recalled I needed to run a number of bullets
also, and once I had the pot going, I left for upstairs to fetch the
moulds for both revolver bullets and those for the 'elephant gun'.

Paul was
altogether interested in both moulds, though when I began dumping
revolver bullets on a damp rag, he spat, “those things are not
proper balls! How do you expect to get something like that in a
rotating pistol?”

“It takes a bit
of care, Paul,” said Anna, as she came down with a jug of beer and
a pair of cups. “You'll want to wash your hands well before you
drink anything if you are running lead, even what he's running.”
Pause, then, “I'm very glad I had my pistol loaded with those
the last time I needed to use it, as those witches dropped right off,
and I think Hans is going to use them from now on, ever since
he got in that mess at the Public House with those three stinkers and
emptied his pistol into their backsides and saw them run off.”

“Yes, if I can
get those,” said Hans. “Now there were some brass tins, and I
think I want one for my bullets if I must carry that type
there.” I could tell Hans was wondering about that one device that
lubricated such bullets as I used.

“Shoe-polish
tin,” I muttered. “Paul, Hans, someone – please stir that
lead-pot. I think I can find what Hans needs to keep his revolver
bullets in, and I suspect there's more than one of these things
laying around here somewhere.”

What I found,
while these tins were 'older than time' and somewhat green and gold
with 'verdigris', cleaned up readily in a dilute solution of
'sulfur-acid' followed by a longer time spent in a solution of
salaterus, and the result, with a bit of buffing with a soft cloth
with a pinch of the red-paste-and-rouge material I used in lieu of
that stinky stuff called red-tallow, was marvelous to the eyes and
perfect for keeping one's bullets 'good'.

It was good Hans
didn't just have one or two; he had a modest-sized cloth bag
of the things, and they all cleaned up quickly enough to make me
wonder as to who made them and where they came from. I hoped and
prayed they had not once held torture-drugs. I put that out of my
mind, and resumed running revolver bullets, as while I might wish
thirty or so bullets for the 'elephant gun', I needed to run a lot
of revolver bullets, as this type hit a lot harder than the
more-common soft lead sphere, and I'd encountered more than one
'hard' functionary earlier today.

One wished these
revolver bullets to be dipped in that 'black-grease', as then loading
them and wiping the grease into the chambers prevented both a
chain-fire and kept the fouling from one's powder down to 'almost
nothing', if I went by Hans' story about Anna finding and then both
of them shooting at two witches on the way home with their 'old'
pistols.

I wondered why for
a moment until Hans motioned to the three large bricks of lead he had
sitting and the fourth one he was cutting up, and the mostly-full keg
of 'fine-grain' powder we had.

“We have lots of
lead for these things, but for those others we have but few of those
brass things, if I do some thinking,” said Hans. “Then, those
other pistols are prone to trouble, or so that woman from the valley
says, as they have seen them and pistols like them, and these
rotating pistols are not that way.”

“One of those
new ones stuck on me last night,” said Sarah. “It misfired,
remember? I had to set it aside while I was shooting, and it made me
glad I had gotten two of them.”

I now found my
efforts divided between lead-stirring, formulation of a sizable
amount of black-grease over a low flame, distillation of some really
thick 'heavy distillate', and showing Paul and Hans how to run both
the bullets for my rifle and those for revolvers. I knew we
wanted well over a hundred of the latter, as we would be using
revolvers overseas, and when I had a spare minute – those were rare
– I drew this one very peculiar drawing.

This
showed a stubby cartridge, one with a flat-tipped lead bullet, one
made of hardened lead; and the cartridge used one of those odd
hemispherical primers. What was inside the cartridge, however, made
for wondering, even if the three grease grooves didn't.

“Flake-type
powder?” I asked.

“That type never
made it out of the laboratory, at least up until now,” said the
soft voice. “They'll like that stuff overseas, as it's a
lot faster to make than what they've been using, and it will
work well for many faster-burning applications.”

“F-faster
burning?” I asked. I had this odd impression about this one
propellant that burned so infernally fast that light loads in pistols
was about all it was good for. While it did leave a fair amount of
residue, it did work well in those applications – and using
that stuff had made the hand-howitzer of recollection
'semi-manageable'.

“At least I
could put some holes in the black then with that thing,” I
murmured.

“That type will
be in thin flakes, like paper,” said the soft voice. “That
cartridge you just drew was loaded with a thicker species, one that
burns as fast as some rifle powders where you came from –
and it will give that type of pistol 'Webley' knockdown power,
especially in that size.”

“A
point-four-four-two bullet?” I asked. That wasn't much smaller
than what actually went in a real Webley pistol.

“Close enough to
the punch of a dragoon for all save thugs needing rifles to stop them
to not know the difference,” said the soft voice. “That pistol
will be perhaps two inches longer than what you usually use, weigh
about twelve ounces more, and have a substantial recoil, much
like that one you fired once.”

“F-forty-four
magnum?” I gasped, this silently.

“Much like that
one was loaded, in fact,” said the soft voice. “It might not
have been a dragoon or those large pistols for kick, but it did
let you know when you fired it.”

“Easier to
manage, mostly,” I thought, knowing that kind of a bullet would 'do
execution' on the receiving end at those velocities. “No
real muzzle flash to speak of, no smoke...”

“Precisely,”
said the soft voice. “That powder will become a very
popular material in medical chemistry labs, as it's about half the
work for twice the powder, and the burning rate is controlled more by
its geometry than chemistry.” Pause, then, “the fact that there
about two-thirds the number of reactions, they're mostly
less-critical ones, and that propellant uses common materials,
will make the usual 'five gram' amounts possible with the usual type
of propellants into 'fifty gram' lots.”

“Less
energy-dense, and, uh, fluffier?” I asked.

“Nowhere near
what you might think,” said the soft voice. “Three grains of
that stuff in a weapon that normally took three grains of that
propellant you were thinking of would have put you in the hospital
needing major surgery, it's that much stronger.” Pause, then, “it
will work well in a lot of commonly-used weapons over there
and here, and permit most of the other propellant lines to be
dedicated to the production of rifle and artillery propellants –
which will be much desired.”

My hands had
continued working, and now, when I looked around, I noted a very
crowded laboratory: all three men were engaged in running bullets of
one kind or another, with Hans asking me to supervise the lead-pot
and its needed additions; Hans was running revolver bullets; while
Paul, once he had been given instruction in how to do matters right,
alternated between casting bullets for my rifle and pouring lead in
the four cavity Heinrich mould. Both moulds needed to be warmed to
their task, which meant I was kept fairly busy, first with checking
every such bullet that was cast, then keeping the lead-pot hot and at
the proper level, first with defective bullets, then adding lead,
tin, and that mixture of hardening metals. It was warm work, so much
so that I needed to go upstairs perhaps every fifteen minutes to
first wash, use the privy, and wash again, and then down quickly a
cup of beer before heading downstairs once more.

The stultifying
boredom of my task was such that only when Paul indicated he had no
less than forty of the 'lead corncobs' did I 'wake up' from what I
was doing. I glanced around, and heard soft murmurings somewhere
behind and to my right, these being certain medicines the women were
looking over.

“That bark that
works well for blood-shot, dear,” I said. “Grind up some in a
mortar and put it in a small sample bag.”

“A bronze
mortar, or one of the smaller ones?” asked Sarah.

“We need to take
a smaller one with us in a medical kit,” I said, “but for that
bark, use a bronze one.” Pause, then, “I may need to do some
work to Hans' scale tonight. Not sure how much I can do to help it,
perhaps only cleaning, but I think I might be able to do something
to help.”

“And a plastic
jug of Komaet,” murmured Sarah as she went to find one of the small
bronze mortars with their turned wooden-handled pestles fitted with
the bronze cap. She then hitched and yelped when she passed Hans.

“What happened?”
I asked.

“He's been busy
with some two-line tin pieces he found and some stamps,” said
Sarah, “and he has here some tags like some I've seen you use.”
Pause, then, “quote: Komaet, for soreness and risings'. He has two
of them done, and I think they want good string.”

“Lukas,” I
muttered. “Both of them can't go more than twenty paces from the
privy, as between those chemicals and all the uncorking medicine they
drank, they need to make frequent urgent calls. Lukas looked over
their buggy, nodded at it, got on his horse, and then went after the
stuff – and he's got his own plans for that place.”

“What will he
do?” asked Esther from across the room. She'd obviously heard
something about him.

“Probably going
to put a few rounds into that place that looks like a respectable
Public House – and was, least until a week ago when some of those
expert sneak-witches did a double-barreled inquest on the owners and
everyone worth anything that works there and sent them packing with
small coin-purses.”

“Sent them
packing, eh?” said Willem. “Now this mould here, Paul, is a
decent one, same as they all are. What's happening – you not
pouring often enough?”

“I am not sure,”
said Paul. “If I pour too fast, that frosts the bullets, but if I
do not pour as often, they do not fill out good.”

“Then you must
count steady with those things,” said Hans. “That for shot, you
pour as fast as you can, and if you want your shot good and full,
then that is what you do. The others, you wait until the sprue is
solid, then knock the sprue-cutter thing aside with a mallet, unclamp
the tongs, dump the bullet, and pour another one – and you do that
as fast as you can until the bullets get frosty-looking, then count
to fifty slow and start doing them fast again.”

“The one for
shot needs no such counting,” said Sarah, “which is a good thing,
as we are most short of shot, and they will wish shot for here
and at the house – though more at the house, in case they get many
Generals showing suddenly.”

“I can use
frosty bullets,” I said. “The wrinkled ones work less well, so
they and the sprues need to go back in the pot.” Pause, then,
“Hans, more tin, hardening metals, and some more lead, especially
that stuff you're cutting off of that big ingot with that wide
chisel.” Pause, then, “did I make one of those recently?”

“Yes, only it
was part of an order for a mason,” said Hans, “and I asked Georg
if he could make two of those things and sell me the second, as I had
had a dream about getting a lot of lead, and now I have these
four big bricks of the stuff, and they will not go in that lead-pot
there unless I cut them smaller.”

“Do you have
smaller lead-moulds?” I asked. I wanted 'mixed' lead that Hans
could melt during our absence, though if he were speaking of
commonplace musket balls, he could more or less handle those
passably. His several hundred pounds of lead was enough to keep him
busy for the foreseeable future. Paul then asked a cogent question.

“Where did you
get that lead?”

“That we can
show you on the way tomorrow,” said Anna. “I think if you're
really inclined toward lead, you may wish to go tonight, but you'll
wish to go with Sarah, as she can find the stuff readily.” Pause,
then, “there should be about two to three days before the
scavengers get onto it in numbers.”

“More than
that,” said the soft voice, “but you can expect numbers of
people going out with every good buggy that can be rounded up on
short notice after that teaching tomorrow, and gathering every bit of
lead they possibly can, so as to secure ample store of it for the
coming 'war'.” Pause, then, “It isn't that tough to find right
now, but it will be tough to carry any real load and not get
those buggies bogged.”

“Almost want a
lead sled for that stuff,” I said “Slick wooden bottom,
put four bricks in it, it slides over the boggy terrain readily...”

“You'd best draw
one of those tonight,” said Sarah. “Now, I doubt those people
overseas have blood-shot, but we are ready for it in case they do,
and I have this jug here with the label for Komaet.” Pause, then,
“Hans, you may have decent stamps, but he'll wish to go over them
when he gets back and clean them up and harden them properly.”

“Yes, I know,”
said Hans. “That is why I used those tin tags, that, and Anna found
a bag of those things, so I could do them.” Hans paused, then
mumbled something about needing what I used for getting his
letters and numbers even and in order.

“Yes, you want
one of those sets also,” said Sarah. “Your stamps probably need
cutting and filing, then treating so they are really hard at the
marking end, and then blackened so they do not rust.” Pause, then
this to Anna.

“Do you know
when Georg will show?” she asked.

“No, but I most
likely will need to go down to the Public House to fetch both some
beer and tell him we may well have some buzzard meat for him,” said
Anna. Pause, then, “I might as well take the publican those salted
pieces of fool-hen anyway, as that is a large buzzard, and I
have no idea how I will cook it all, save in stages.”

“Have him cook
it once it's parboiled, and bring us a pot or two of the meat when
it's done,” I murmured.

“I think I might
do as well and save that man the trouble, as he's as busy as someone
who has just troubled a bee-log,” said Esther. “Now, honey. I
know you have a jugful, but you'll want to both fill a number
of large medicine vials of the stuff and label each one clearly as
being so, but then transfer what is left into something that will not
be broken readily.”

“Like one of
those strange jugs we got,” said Sarah. “One can drop them and
not break them.”

I soon became
'bored out of my skull' regarding feeding the lead-pot, and only when
I noted that the other three men were casting bullets as if out of
their minds using another such pot – a smaller one – on a
heating stand under a heating lamp did I realize just what I was
doing.

“So that's why
they're getting these huge ladles out of this thing, and I need to
keep stirring it and spooning off the dross – I'm doing up the
alloying business, the smoky and smelly part, and they're casting
every bullet they can – and all of them are working as if their
lives depended upon it.”

“No, Hans, you
cannot just do enough for three days,” screeched Anna in response
to Hans seemingly laggardly behavior. “I've no idea how long they
will be gone, but I can say it will be more than ten days and less
than twenty – but we will want bullets for twenty days, and
that means at least three hundreds of bullets for pistols alone.
Shot, at least two sizable leather pouches full and tied, and that
atop that shot that we have been washing out of our hides.”

“Anna, we have
stiff shot, that nickeled stuff,” said Sarah. “The stuff we've
been shedding is more nickel than all else.”

“Yes, I know,”
said Anna, “but that stuff cuts bores badly unless you have an
especially good gun, or so Lukas told me.” Pause, then, “I
think that's one reason witches don't bother cleaning what they use –
they figure their guns will be fit for scrap in a month or two, so
why bother with that work?”

“I guess they're
willing to live with balky locks, half-cocks that don't hold,
triggers that are inconsistent, and then blasting out clouds of rust
amid their swarms of shot – and that's when they can get
that shiny stuff.” Pause, then, “most of them can seldom afford
its use, so they use a pound of common shot per load of nickel, and
none of what we have here can be called 'common'.”

“That is the
truth, Anna,” said Hans, “as this mould is getting so it needs a
rest, and so do my hands from holding the thing, as they are getting
the cramp.”

“Then go down to the Public House
and get a jug of beer and two loaves of bread,” said Anna. “Wash
good first, though. We eat enough lead from witches shooting
at us to want to not eat it with our mouths – and if you see Georg,
speak to him about coming here. I need to check him over.”

Hans promptly left, and Esther took
his place on the mould for pistol bullets. While she was not
familiar with its locking nature or the need for a mallet – with
Willem showing her, she soon was turning out bullets with a rapidity
that was astonishing.

It also had me turning up my
heating lamp and then cutting off more lead with that one wide-bladed
chisel. I wondered if we had bad shot, in fact.

“We have some,
but I think you just want to cut some off of those big ingots we
have,” said Anna. “Now that I think about it, our chief trouble
will be securing enough tin and that hardening metal, as these
bullets need more than the usual of both.”

“We
have several pounds of tin,” I said, “and perhaps eight pounds of
the other, and that's what I can see here. I have my own
supplies of both metals hid in my workbench, and...” Here, I
paused, then said, “you'd best be prepared for more help, as Hans
has found some help down at the Public House. Georg is coming with
him, and he's not only hungry for information about his buggy, he's
really wondering when that thing will show.”